Yellow River Craftsman

Chapter 25 Fishbone Temple

Only then did we discover that the karst cave in the belly of the mountain turned out to be in the shape of a gourd.There is a narrow entrance outside, and there are two large and small caves inside. Now our boat passed the first smaller cave and slowly entered the second larger cave.

This topographic structure is the famous "Eight Immortals Gourd" in Feng Shui, and it is a big auspicious point.If a mausoleum is built on this Fengshui point, it will surely protect the blessings of future generations.

Recently, I often read "The Book of Evil Soldiers", and I have a lot of knowledge about Fengshui in my mind. Now that I see such a topographical structure, I naturally think of the Eight Immortals Gourd.

The karst cave inside is so huge that you can't see the top of the cave when you look up, it's like the whole mountain has been hollowed out, and the emptiness is scary.The top of the cave was pitch black, and even the searchlights couldn't penetrate the darkness, and could only reflect a blurry scene.

This cave is even colder, and the walls of the cave are covered with a thin layer of frost, making it look like a huge freezer, and we are like frozen pork in the freezer.

What we never imagined in our dreams is that there is a tall platform in the deepest part of the cave, and a magnificent and majestic fish bone temple stands on the platform.Everyone couldn't believe their eyes, and couldn't help exclaiming: "My God! Look, that's a fish bone temple! How could a fish bone temple be built here?"

yes!This is also a deep question in my heart. How could there be such a magnificent fish bone temple in this extremely concealed water cave?Who built this fish bone temple?What is the purpose of building this fish bone temple?
We stared blankly at the Fishbone Temple not far ahead, speechless in astonishment.

According to legend, the Fish Bone Temple is built with the bones of big fish, which is very unique. It is a special temple worshiped by fishermen. Like the Dragon King Temple, the Fish Bone Temple also enshrines the Dragon King.There is no way to verify when the Fishbone Temple was first built.However, according to the stone tablet in the original temple, the "Fish Bone Temple" already existed in the Sui Dynasty. In this way, the history of the Fish Bone Temple is at least 1400 years.

The most famous fish bone temple in China is the fish bone temple in Shalingzi Village, Taoluo Town, Donggang District, RZ City.The temple is located on the seashore two kilometers east of Taoluo Town. Behind the temple is Daling, which is composed of nine small ridges.The ridge is a sandy land, covering more than [-] mu, all covered by pine forests.In front of the temple is the long-flowing sea estuary where Chuanzi River, Qingdun River, Jufeng River, Buluo River, Zhuzi River, Gaowang River, Linzi River and other rivers converge and flow eastward into the sea.

It’s just that this fishbone temple collapsed decades ago, leaving only fishbone beams. A section of fishbone beams from the fishbone temple that used to be made of fish scales for tiles and fishbone beams is now preserved in Donggang District, RZ City In the meeting room of the Taoluo town government.

Today, there are such fish bone temples in many places.These fishbone temples are usually built by the river or sea, and people burn incense and worship in the temples to bless the weather and the safety of the boat.Because the fish bones used to build temples are very rare, many fish bone temples are not built with real fish bones even though they bear this title.

But the fish bone temple we see in the cave at this moment is a genuine fish bone temple.This fishbone temple stands on a platform more than three feet high.The platform is made of huge square rocks, and the outside is inlaid with blue square bricks. Each square brick is about two meters long and wide. It is very huge, and the surface of the square bricks is chiseled with strange patterns.

There is a stone step in the center of the platform, and below the stone step stands a row of stone carvings of fish heads, which are piles for mooring boats.When the ship is docked under the platform, in order to prevent the ship from drifting away from the shore, the cables on the ship can be wrapped around these stone carvings of fish heads.

The tin boat slowly leaned against the shore. I jumped onto the deck and was about to reach out to pull the cable.Suddenly, I squinted and saw a strange face passing by under the water. The face was pale and swollen, showing a ferocious and terrifying expression, which looked like the face of a devil.I froze suddenly, rubbed my eyes quickly, and looked under the water again.This time, nothing can be seen underwater, and that strange face seems to have disappeared.

"Boy, what are you doing? Hurry up and tie up the cables!" Grandpa poked his head out from the cockpit.

I responded, and tied the cables on the deck to a stone sculpture of a fish head. I didn't tell anyone about it. I shook my dizzy head, thinking that I must be dazzled.

After we parked the boat, we went up the stone steps and came to the main entrance of the Fishbone Temple.

Standing at the main entrance and looking at the Fishbone Temple, it feels even more majestic and awe-inspiring.

This fish bone temple is almost as high as a three-story building. What is amazing is that the whole fish bone temple is built with real fish bones.We have never seen such a huge fish bone. The smallest fish bone is as thick as an adult's arm, and the largest fish bone used as the backbone of the temple is even more huge, with a length of more than ten and 20 meters.We couldn't help being secretly surprised, where did these fish bones come from?What kind of colossus should a fish with such thick bones be?

In addition to the amazing fish bones, the shape design of the fish bone temple is also amazing.The whole fishbone temple is built in the shape of a huge fish head, and the opened fish mouth is the temple gate.Walking into the Fishbone Temple, there is no special decoration in the temple. There is a big bronze tripod in the center. This is a vessel for burning incense and offering sacrifices. It is probably too old. black.Facing the big bronze tripod stands a bluestone case, on which there are three-dimensional waves carved, which is enough to show the exquisite skills of the craftsmen at that time.On the stone table is a stone sculpture of the Dragon King, which is covered with painted gold, which makes the stone sculpture of the Dragon King look lifelike, especially the dragon head, with flying beard and wide-eyed eyes, which adds a sense of majesty, as if only a gust of wind If it blows, the Dragon King will be able to go away against the wind.

The storm outside couldn't stop for a while, and in the depths of the cave, the rolling thunder could no longer be heard, and the silence here was like an ancient world.In such a peaceful environment, exhaustion quickly surged up, so we picked a corner in the temple to rest.

There were almost 20 people in the fleet that sent the ghost relatives. They sat together in twos and threes, and their faces were full of exhaustion.Some people wiped the moisture from their faces, some people folded their arms and trembled, and some people shook their heads and sighed bitterly, cursing bad luck secretly.

A middle-aged man in his forties came over and greeted us: "We are friends when we meet by chance. I don't know how to call you?"

Professor Ye returned the courtesy and said: "We are from the Northwest Archaeological Team, and we are going to conduct an investigation along the ancient Yellow River road. We did not expect to encounter a storm here! My name is Ye Sheng, and these are my two disciples, Tuoba Gu and Gu Meidi, this old man is our captain, his name is Tuoba Lie!"

The middle-aged man nodded and introduced himself: "My name is Yu Guangwei. Three generations of my ancestors have been fishing on the banks of the Yellow River for a living. It is really sad to say that my eldest daughter went home to visit relatives a few days ago. Unfortunately, she fell into the river and died in this section of the river. My eldest daughter is a college student, and she looks very cute. She is about to graduate soon, so she is planning to go home and have a look. Who would have thought... oh..."

The expression on Yu Guangwei's face was very sad, with tears flickering faintly.But he quickly sniffed, forced a smile and said: "Today is a happy day, I can't cry!"

"What big day?" I deliberately pretended not to know anything.

Yu Guangwei said: "According to our local customs, as long as a girl dies in the Yellow River, it is the King of the Yellow River who has taken a fancy to him, and we have to dedicate the girl to the King of the Yellow River as his wife, and let the King of the Yellow River bless our family safe." This custom is called "send ghost relatives" here, and today we are here to send ghost relatives. Originally, we planned to sink our daughter's body into the Yellow River and dedicate it to the King of the Yellow River, but before we even reached the place where the corpse was buried, we ran into It's a storm. Oh, this really worries me, I wonder if the Yellow River King is angry?"

Whenever Yu Guangwei mentions the "King of the Yellow River", his face is full of piety.The King of the Yellow River is the god of the river in the ancient road of the Yellow River. These fishermen who walk on the Yellow River all the year round naturally believe in it very much.

Not far away, a middle-aged woman suddenly burst into tears: "Woooooo! Wooooo! My daughter, you died so badly!"

The sound of crying broke the tranquility of the Fishbone Temple, and the old man with the goatee came quickly to the middle-aged woman and hurriedly advised, "Mother Dahua, don't cry, don't cry, you cry the King of the Yellow River Not happy!"

The middle-aged woman cried even harder: "King of the Yellow River, why did you just fall in love with my big flower? We managed to raise the big flower to be a college student, you... why did you take our big flower away?" Woolen cloth?"

The old man with the goatee said: "Dahua's mother, you can be careful when you speak, you are very lucky to be a girl who is favored by the King of the Yellow River. As long as you sink Dahua's body properly, your family will be able to do well in the future." , everything is going well!"

The middle-aged woman kept whimpering and crying, Yu Guangwei's complexion changed, he cupped his fists at me and said, "That's my daughter-in-law Xiang Qinmei, I'm sorry, I'll go and have a look first!"

As he said that, Yu Guangwei turned around, walked in front of Xiang Qinmei in three steps at a time, raised his palm the size of a cattail fan, and slapped Xiang Qinmei's face with his head around his head, cursing angrily: "Cry, cry, cry, cry!" You unlucky dead old woman knows how to cry! Didn’t Mr. Goat tell you that you can’t cry when sending off ghost relatives, or the King of the Yellow River will get angry. Didn’t you see the storm outside? It’s all because of you crying You angered the King of the Yellow River, that's why the world changed! Fuck you, if you cry again, I will smack your mouth!"

Xiang Qinmei was stunned by Yu Guangwei's slap, she looked at her man with a face of fear, wanted to cry but didn't dare to cry out, the depressed look was not to mention how ugly.

The scene in front of us made us both funny and angry. What we laughed at was the ignorance of these people, and what made us angry was that a big man beat and scolded his wife.I couldn't stand it any longer. Just as I was about to say something, Professor Ye quickly waved his hand at me, motioned me to shut up, and then said in a low voice, "Don't talk too much, this is someone else's housework! Also, this is a local If you say something disrespectful to the King of the Yellow River, it may cause conflict!"

(End of this chapter)